Archive for July, 2012

I’ve been honored with a nomination for the Liebster Award by Shirley Sorbello and Candace Knoebel! Seeing as this is only my 6th post, I have really no clue what this means, but hey I am all for it. Both Shirley and Candace’s blogs are way awesome, so check them out! As well as the bloggers I have tagged at the bottom of this page as well.

What is the Liebster Award?

“The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The Meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.”

Now for the rules:

If you are tagged/nominated, you have to post 11 facts about yourself.
Then you answer the 11 questions the tagger has given you & make 11 questions for the people you are going to tag.
Tag 11 more Bloggers.
Tell the people you tagged that you did.
No tagging back.
The person you tag must have less than 200 followers.

And here we go.

11 facts about myself:

1. I was born in England.

2. I am huge New Orleans Saints Football fan.

3. I have a Bachelors and Masters degree.

4. I have a beautiful niece Emma, who is super silly.

5. I have a nephew Trey on the way, so pumped!

6. Soccer is my favorite sport to play.

7. Living on the beach is one of my dreams.

8. I can pop my big toe repeatedly for what seems like to be infinity.

9. I love to read.

10. I have the best looking blue eyes you have ever seen.

11. I currently live in one of the hottest locations in the world, Flowood, MS.

11 questions from the fabulous Candace Knoebel:

1.What is your biggest dream? To make an impact on the world through whatever means God intends me to do so. To bring a sense calm, peace, and lots of smiles to others.2.What inspires you the most? Everything around me. People, places, things, words all constantly inspire me on so many different levels. Especially the people who I care about most in life.3.What is your favorite kind of music? The type of music that Ben Harper and Incubus sing.4.How did you wind up with a blog?Curiosity.5.What is your favorite food? Close race between pizza and chicken wings. Ice cream slides in with a close third. 6.What is your favorite genre of reading? Really tough question, because I tend to like authors more than genres. So I plead the 5th.7.The ocean or the mountains? Ocean 8.Are you a hopeless romantic? Definitely not, I am a hopeful romantic.9.What is your current WIP about? A house and a carpenter, that’s all i can say.10. What is your top five favorite movies? Dark Knight series, Hangover part 1, Old School, Matrix trilogy, and um 6th sense maybe idk, I am sure to have left off a bunch of better movies. 11. What is your favorite thing about yourself? My soul.

My 11 questions:

What is your favorite book?

Winter or Summer?

Who is the most inspirational person in your life?

What is one of your best memories?

What is your favorite color and why?

If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

If you could have one super power, what would it be?

American football or European football?

Who are your top 3 favorite authors?

Are you a night or day person?

Werewolf, Zombie, or Vampire?

Introducing my nominees (For the best I can tell these bloggers have under 200 followers, if not oh well, I tried!):

I have read so many books, many many books. I wouldn’t even dare create a list of the ones I thought are worth reading. And a list of ones, I felt like were not. Actually, I am pretty sure I couldn’t even create a list of books not to read, because if they are not worth reading then reason stands, I haven’t read them.

But with that being said, I will put my foot in my mouth and recommend one book that you read.

First, I wish I was receiving some kind of monetary compensation for plugging this book, but I am not.

Second, I am not exactly a Stephen King fan boy. I have only read two of his novels, Duma Key and The Gunslinger. Both great books.

On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, is a must read for any one that writes. It does not matter what level of writer you are; this book is full of raw insight into the mind of a writer.

When I was younger, I absolutely dreaded reading any kind of authors preface, afterword, thoughts, feelings, diary, etc. They always seemed like wasted pages. In most cases, I skipped these parts entirely and went right for the story itself. With age, I have found that these once ridiculed sections, our now among my favorites parts in a book. Now my only gripe is that they are not long enough, I want to read more.

This book delivers that “more” and well a lot more at that.

Reading is arguably the most powerful weapon a writer has at their disposal. A case could be made that writing should be considered the top tool for a writer and I certainly would not argue against that either. But what I will say is that most of us came into this world reading first, writing second. Thus our passion for writing developed. This book represents that “reading first” moment in our life. And proceeds to span the entirety of our reading careers, right up to the point which you are reading this now. In addition, it bridges nicely into the “writing second” part of our current and future lives.

Have a great day and week all!

JMD

P.S. Stephen King should really consider paying me for this glorious review. Maybe I will write him a letter, I mean he did say something about persistence in the book.

Hello all, hope everyone is having a great weekend. Please enjoy the following personal philosophy/insight into a writer’s mind that I wrote today.

Preface: I like giving these short prefaces before each of my works and I am going to try to continue to do so when possible. To me it is interesting to see where the ideas for a piece of writing develop. But anyway, to the preface. This idea titled “We Need to Go Back to Horses” came to me this morning. I actually sent the title as a random, off the wall text to my friend this morning. Within seconds after I hit the send button, the idea came to me to write this. Lastly, there is a lot more to this work than the title and opening paragraphs may indicate, so please stick with it if you find yourself wondering, “why the hell am I reading about horses”. Enjoy!

We Need to Go Back to Horses

Enough with all this car business, we don’t need a zillion mechanical beast running around that may or may not be destroying our planet. I for one, am quite tired of these big tin cans cluttering up our beautiful landscape. Okay, let’s be honest here, I really am just tired of paying $454.00 for a gallon of gas. Plus, riding a horse, how cool is that right. So, I propose that we start riding horses as our primary means of rapid transportation. It worked in the past, why can’t it work for us?

Reason #1- As previously mentioned in the introduction. Riding a horse is just simply cool. I mean imagine riding a horse to the store, to school, to work, out to the bar. Cool, right? Told you.

Reason #2- Riding a horse automatically makes you a cowboy or cowgirl. Speaking for myself, I will definitely carry a double gun holster on my side, a flask filled with some of the worst tasting whiskey around, and my face will be covered with the experience of dirt and dust…Hm…I was born in the wrong generation, I seriously would have made a great cowboy…

Have you ever thought you were born in wrong era of time? That you would have thrived during the Renaissance, where being an artist was looked at as the most admirable of all occupations. Or like myself, felt like you were a cowboy in your former life or some other character from scenes long past written on the tablets of history? Or maybe you have dreams of futuristic scenarios, a place and time of space ships with trips to far off galaxies?

For some of us, this is a depressing thought. We can’t go back in time, and we certainly cannot travel into the future. Wait…what did I just say; let me digress because that last statement is only half-true. In fact, as a writer we can go back in time and most certainly can travel into the future.

As a writer, we hold the power within our pens and the canvas of our note pad paper to defy all the rules of physics. We create the rules, and rewrite them as we see fit. We create worlds where cowboys are kings with the simple, but complex movements of a well placed pen stroke. We create realities, we create worlds, we pull the strings that tug at the very heart of imagination.

As a writer we hold a power that is often misunderstood in today’s technology driven society. But don’t let this be a hindrance, in fact use it as inspiration. Inspiration that compelled me to create a world over flowing with whiskey drinking cowboys, a world where not a single car can be found. So don’t just think it, create it the next time you think we need to go back to horses.

Before the poem, first I would like to say that I plan on trying to post at least once a day. They won’t always be poems, but I don’t have access to any of my work from home because well I am not at home. But I do have my note pad in my car, where I scribble down a bunch of writing ideas, poems, quotes, etc and I found this one, so hope you enjoy.

Writers preface: This idea came to me one day in a store, and I just happened to take note of the customer service line. And God knows for whatever reason, but the inspiration to write about love and how people seem to toy with it as if they can exchange it like the customers in that line came to me. So thus, this little beauty was produced.

Exchanged Denied!

I can write letters you will only see once,
whisper words you won’t hear again.
Paint a picture, priceless for your eyes alone,
give you flowers whose scent will never fade.
Hold you in my arms, an unforgettable embrace,
present a gift of love, molded perfectly for your heart.
There is only one thing I will ask from you in return,
nothing, quite simply nothing.
Love cannot be asked for, it’s not deserved, nor owed;
it can only be given, and cannot be exchanged.

Welcome to my new blog. I hope to provide my readers with entertainment, interesting perspectives, and a wide open window into a soul that flourishes with a canvas of paper. Well, I believe in this case the canvas would be my computer screen, but I think you get the point.

I plan on posting a wide range of writings. From short stories, poems, quotes, etc and each of these will deal with wide ranging topics such as: life, humor, politics, irony, religion, love, sarcasm, and a whole host of other topics that I have left out.

I encourage everyone to be honest with their comments and likes. If you think something is total garbage, by all means let me know and on the other hand if you enjoy, obviously let me know as well.

In addition, I am very open to any ideas that you may have, and more than willing to create a piece of writing art if you so desire. For example, if there is a religious topic you would interested in reading my take on, please let me know. And as well, if you would like a specific poem or short story written for you for whatever reason and for whomever, etc let me know and I will do my best to suffice that request.

In closing, I am not naive. I understand that this blog is going to see some lean days earlier on, but through persistence and a little confidence, we will see what happens.

“Impossible to learn how to fly, if you are unwilling to jump off a bridge, right?” -JMD-